“Let’s go, Nikki.”
I tipped my head toward Liam. “If you need to go, go, but I want to stay.”
“I’m not leaving without you, but weareleaving.”
I set my teeth. I understood he was rattled—I was too—but that didn’t give him the right to boss me around. “She’s harml—”
Snarls erupted behind me. I rose and spun.
“Get the tranquilizer gun,” Liam barked at Reese.
She rushed to grab it from the wall, then rushed back just as the coroner sank his fangs into his wife’s unnaturally long neck and shook his head with such violence that blood spurted from the wound.
My palm rose to my mouth, covering my gasp, just as Reese shot a dart into the man’s thigh. His body froze before crumpling sideways, his fangs sliding out of his wife’s mangled neck. Her body dropped in time with his, both of them smacking into the puddle of her blood.
Liam’s entire body vibrated as though his wolf were about to break through his skin. “Are you ready to go homenow?”
“Is she—is she dead?” I whispered.
Bea howled and paced on her fingered paws, her claws grinding against the cement.
“Did he kill his wife?”
“Apple, the door.” Reese was breathing hard.
After ascertaining no wolf moved, Apple unlocked the cage for her mate.
Reese crouched next to the smaller of the two vampwolves and pressed her palm between the rounded breasts that were coated in velvety skin and tufts of fur. “No heartbeat.”
A whimper sounded. It came from me this time.
“Nikki, please get in the car.” Liam’s voice brooked no argument.
Not that I wanted to argue this time. I spun and strode out, holding on to the arm that Doc had popped back into place. An eternity, which probably lasted mere minutes, later, Liam exited the bunker and climbed behind the wheel.
“When he’s going to shift back into skin . . . when he’s going to realize what he’s done . . . Liam, you can’t let him shift back into skin! He’ll never forgive himself.”
Liam didn’t respond, didn’t say a word the entire ride home, but the second we parked in front of my house, he punched his steering wheel and growled, “That could’ve been you. Thatfuckingcould’ve been you.” A lock of dark hair tumbled into his eyes and caught on his lashes. “I should never have let you go inside that cell.”
“I’m glad you did. I’m glad I got to hug her.” Especially since I feared it might’ve been one of the last times.
No.I couldn’t think like that. I wouldn’t think like that.
“Are you also glad you got to see the coroner murder his wife?”
I bristled. “Of course not.”
He shoved aside the lock of hair on his forehead, his eyes running the gamut of brown, black, amber, yellow. The color slideshow was slightly frightening, especially considering how robust Liam’s accompanying scowl was. “Fuck.Fuck.”
I tugged off my seat belt and turned toward him. “I know Avery said human blood could make them feral, but maybe—”
“We arenotfeeding those creatures something with the potential to make them more violent.”
“So we go back to giving them Lori’s blood?”
He scraped his palms down his face, the gauze catching on his stubble but not unraveling. “That’s not a solution.”
Dread lashed my spine. “So, what? They die on the full moon?”
